Here’s how to write and sell a fast-selling paperback 98-page (when published) pamphlet or booklet, the kind you see on supermarket impulse racks at the check stand. They can sell quite a number of copies, or you can sell them by mail order or online from your Web site.

Start by writing about twice the number of pages that will be published. For a 98-page booklet, about 196 double spaced typed pages produces, usually a single-spaced booklet with double spaces and headlines between the sections. You may come out with having to write less than 196 pages, it depends upon the font and size of the booklet. However, here are the dimensions you’ll need. The size of the booklet may either be six inches wide by nine inches in length or five and a half inches wide by 8 inches or 8 1/2 inches in length.

Take your choice. The difference is that trade paperbacks of 6 by 9 inches fit on supermarket impulse racks at checkout counters, whereas the mass market paperbacks you see in supermarkets and book stores in the back areas on special 5 by 8 book-size racks are standard for novels in the masspaperback market.

Let’s say you choose the 6 by 9 size, which is the best fit for the impulse check out stand supermarket size. It will also fit into gift shops and specialty store racks. You’ll have a soft, glossy cover with your price, usually $2.99 printed on the upper right hand corner of the book cover. The title will be placed in the middle of the book cover toward the upper half. It will be centered and have a two-word to five-word title that speaks volumesabout what’s in your little paper book. In the middle of the cover, explain in one short sentence in smaller font, about 24 point what your book shows people how to do. It must be a how-to book such as how to find and keep a soulmate, or some other how-to theme.

Below the explanation is the author’s name: by, Joe John or whatevername you want on the cover. Inside the cover on the left hand side youprint the name of your publishing company. Assuming you’re publishingthe booklet yourself, put an intelligent-sounding two-word name for yourpublishing company such as Behavioral Digests and trade mark your publishing firm, even if it’s only you at home.

Then under than you can put a longer publishing company name, justin case you want to publish other items besides these little paperbackbooklets. Put something light Published by International Palm-sizedBooks, Inc., and your address. You can incorporate your publishing company.

Use an office address or a PO Box number, not your home address.You don’t want people showing up on the front steps. Under that put: Copyright, the year, by, your publishing company, address and e-mail address. Leave out your home phone. You can add a disclaimer in small font at the bottom that “Reproduction in whole or part of any (your publishing company’s name) without written authorization is prohibited. The add at the bottom, “printed in the USA” or wherever you send the booklet to be printed. I understand printing prices in Singapore are great, so I hear from greeting card publishers nowadays.

On your first page’s right hand side, print the name of the book centeredup close to the top of the page, leaving a 2 inch margin from the top. Put ina small clip art illustration or your own art, and then a line and a by (author’sname) at the bottom, leaving another 2 inch margin from the bottom.

The left hand side of the first page can have an illustration centered.On the right hand side put your table of contents. Label it Contents.Divide your booklet into six small chapters and list them. Let’s say yourbook is on how to find a rich mate. Label it with a title, such as why am Isingle? Then have a second chapter on your cure-all for loneliness.

A third chapter on raising your feeling of importance, a fourth chapteron how to appreciate being by yourself in various settings, a fifth chapteron how to find your soul mate and where to look, and a last or sixth chapteron how to keep your mate once you found him or her. Mostly womenwill buy this book on impulse, but if the book is labeled, how to pick upgirls, of course it will attract guys or anyone who wants to meet girls.

The left hand side of your table of contents page should have artworkon it centered. Then on page 7, a right-hand side page, your first chapterbegins with the title, self-explanatory and short, usually asking a questionwhich you will answer in your first chapter. Define your question andanswer it. Keep each chapter four printed pages, which is eight doublespaced type written pages. When made single-spaced, each chapter runs to about four printed pages each.

Then start your second chapter on page eleven. Break your booklet upinto segments or chunks. The printing will be singled spaced with doublespaces between each section or segment heading that tells the reader howto solve a problem or fill a need. The problem could be technical or personal, business-oriented or relationship-oriented, health-directed, orabout healing and nutrition, parenting, or any subject likely to land on asupermarket check out counter’s impulse rack.

After every 14 or 14 chapters, usually 13 to 15 chapters, you’ll need asegment or section break with a new title, perhaps outline your case histories, success stories, anecdotes, interviews, or using someone as an example.

Don’t use real names unless you have signed permission letters andcan footnote that at the end of each chapter in a list of references that’snumbered. For brevity, use a first name only and an initial, usually a fake false name approved by whomever you interview with an asterisk sayingthe name was changed to preserve privacy.

Use more than one example, usually two or three case histories. You canalso use celebrity examples if you can get permission for success storiesthat run about 13 paragraphs each.

Have sections divided if you can around page 19, 21, 23, and startanother chapter heading around page 28. Every two pages should havesection breaks with new headings. You might write and publish a bookleton journaling and describe how it’s related to a feeling of self-importanceor of accepting oneself as “good,” or write a technical or business how-to ifyou’re not an expert on relationships.

More women will buy these booklets if they’re about relationships. Youcan focus on instructional booklets on any topic from needlepoint andcrafts to how to paint furniture and offer it to do-it-yourself stores, such asthe big chain stores that customers frequent to buy do-it yourself materialsfor home repair and building. Another fast-selling area is travel writing.This would focus on where to go and how to find specifics fromantiques to restaurants and entertainment for various ages, education,visual anthropology, or special needs, such as traveling with multiple disabilities or traveling with one’s dog or cat. One person trains his cat to use any toilet so he can take it into motel rooms without a litter box.

Your main focus is on how to do something, build something, solve aproblem, make choices, or fill various needs, from quilting to relationships.Most people buy booklets with general titles such as how to keep amate from leaving or how to save a troubled marriage.

Your six-chapter booklet should take up about 98 pages when printed, sodon’t make it longer or it won’t fit into the small books rack in supermarketsand gift shops. It’s easier to mail that way. Break your six chapters into three sections that run about two pages each per section with each chapter about four to six pages in length, but vary the length throughout the booklet.Distribute it yourself or find a distributor who handles the supermarketimpulse checkout counter rack. Or you can use gift shops or mail order.

Another way to go is to offer your booklet to the tabloids as they havepublishing divisions for these type of little books. They’ll take a lot of yourprofit, so my advice is do everything yourself from writing to selling.A print run of 1,500 copies would test your markets, but do your marketresearch first to make sure someone would buy your book in largenumbers. You might try a test run in a supermarket to see if the bookletmoves and whether it competes with the tabloid-published booklets ofsimilar size and length.

Will the tabloids let you compete with them in their supermarket client’s racks? If not, you have the small gift shops and the malls. If you want to move the booklet, also offer it on tape or online for the e-publishing download market or on a flash drive, mobile recording device, or disc. Look at all the marketing alternatives and give your booklet visibility inplace where people gather. Career booklets belong in community college and high school career counseling libraries.

Non-Fiction Booklets and Pamphlet on Controversial or Contemporary Issues

Sixty-six-page pamphlets or booklets that are about 4 inches wide andabout 6 inches in length. These booklets fill up quickly with your articles.Don’t forget to reduce the number of pages you write that first start out asdouble-spaced typed pages. You can also provide marketing research forcorporations or information for advertising and public relations agencies,employment agencies, or college career centers in this format or mysteryshopper news if updates aren’t required more frequently than annually.

If you’re printing up an 8 1/2 by 11 inch page, usually it takes up totwice as much writing to reduce the size in half when you print up singlespaced content with a double space between paragraphs and allow for a 16point type size font for each heading or larger fonts for chapter headingsWriting, Publishing, and Selling Your Own Small Booklets or PamphletsWhen you print up small booklets, you’ll need much less writing to fillup a whole little booklet.

These small booklets are bought by school libraries to fill research folders on a variety of topics that are current issues in the news. If you are marketing to the general public through supermarket racks on impulse shelves near the checkout counter, usually near the checkout person, you’ll want to supply each supermarket with your own racks the size of your tiny booklets.

The subjects that sell best are topics that tell the reader how somethingaffects or changes something else. For example, how different foods affectyour moods, and subtitle the booklet how people can change their behavioror their lives by adjusting the foods to their moods or any other topictelling readers how to improve themselves with the specific information.

Price your booklets anywhere from $1 to $2. Usually $1.19 in the USand $1.49 in Canada is fine, keeping the price plus tax adding up to aneven amount. Find out what the tax would be on your booklets to oneperson at a checkout counter for the booklet. Then adjust the price so thereader can pay the tax and your price and have it add up to an easy tocome up with amount, like $1.20 or $1.50. Calculate your expenses soyou can arrive at a price that looks inviting.

Keep your pages around 66. Use an even number of pages. Your coverwould have a title and a subtitle explaining what the title can do for thereader, how changing the behavior can change the person’s life. Print yourcompany or publishing name and address on the inside cover in the center.On the first page, label it “Contents” and list you six or seven chaptersand the page numbers. At the bottom of the contents page, about twoinches up from the bottom of the page have the authors name in small,but easily readable font, such as 10 point Times New Roman or italics.

The left hand side of the contents page should have a disclaimer sayingthat your book is intended as a reference volume, not a medical manual soyou won’t be sued for giving medical advice without a license or credentials.Put in there that your booklet doesn’t presume to give medical advice.You really need this in there. Add a “consult your physician beforebeginning any therapeutic program,” to protect yourself from being suedor accused of giving medical advice.

You need this disclaimer on any booklet that gives information based on material provided by actual researchers and experts, even if you are using medical articles with simplified English or anything where people are told what to eat to change their health or behavior.

Always put this disclaimer or a similar one into a booklet you write andpublish. This is especially true when you interview doctors or read theirarticles and report what they wrote, even with their written permission,which you always need to have. You don’t need this disclaimer of yourbooklet is about how to knit costumes for animals or how to fix a leakyfaucet or repair and antique furniture, but you need it for special diet,food, and nutrition booklets.

Each chapter can run four to 12 pages in this tiny booklet with thechapter divided every few paragraphs into new headings so you break upyour booklet in chunks. Try to balance the size of your chapters. Usuallyfour-page chapters work best in this size booklet totaling about 6 or 7chapters, and total amount of pages being about 66.

Keep your pages an even number. Don’t leave blank pages in this sizebooklet. On your back, glossy cover have a one or two-sentence descriptionof the book centered about one inch down from the top. Put it in abox if you like, and put your bar code below with the price on the back.You’ll also have the price on the front cover, your logo in the upper lefthand corner of the front cover, the title, subtitle, and any illustration, usuallya photo in color of a person working with the items in the book ordoing some action that sums up what the book says.

Have the book cover put on with two staples in the spine that are notreadily noticeable to the reader. Only the backs of the staples should beseen on the spine, and flat into the crease of the spine of the book so as notto catch on any object. You don’t need an ISBN number for this kind ofbooklet, only a bar code so the scanning machine in the supermarket canscan it. Provide your own racks if ones there belong to other merchantsand distributors. Have the price on the front and back cover in addition tothe bar code so readers can see the price immediately.

If you write on health topics, keep the English simple, writing at 5thgrade level. Keep sentences short and paragraphs short, about two sentences per paragraph. Use Times New Roman 12 point type, nothingsmaller, or older people won’t want to look unless they have their readingglasses. So keep the font large enough for most people to see at most ages.

You can find distributors who specialize in small pamphlets and booklets,or specialize in supplying college and high school career counselingoffices with booklets on each type of career in a group of related careers.Or focus on foods and health or psychology and behavior for self-help.Inspirational booklets have their own market, but if you want people topay for your booklets, give them information that’s harder to find and isnot usually found among the free literature available at community or religious centers. Also try specialty gift stores, home building centers, discount stores, libraries, business, professional, and trade associations,corporations, schools, and employee organizations. Writing on contemporary and controversial issues in the news supplies school libraries with information for student research. For more information on getting bar codes or ISBN numbers for your larger booklets, just click on my other article here on writing 98-page booklets and pamphlets.

Turn them into a 4 inch by 6 inch small, 72-page romance story bookletsand sell in supermarkets and gift shops or packaged with other products.Don’t forget those wonderful romance novelettes and stories you havethat are shorter than book length. If they are sweet romances, short storiesin three parts or “acts,” of about 23 pages for each act, totalling around 72pages or so, you can turn them into 72-page, 4 inch by 6 inch booklets,promote, and sell the little pamphlets at supermarkets.

They go in the impulse racks at the checkout counters. Most of these small size miniracks hold booklets about four inches wide by six inches long. This is the ideal size for romance stories or novelettes.You’ll get about a maximum of 300 words on a page: that’s a maximumof 10 or 11 words across a line and about a maximum of 30 lines on a page. For first pages of new sections, and you’ll have three sections or“acts,” you start about two inches down from the top of the page with thefirst letter of your beginning sentence capitalized and highlighted in alarger font than the rest of the letters.

You’ll need a bar code. You don’t need an ISBN number unless you alsowant to send your booklets to gift shops or put your own racks up tomatch your customized size in supermarkets if they have room, but thesmall size that holds the four by six inch booklet is fine. If you plan to sellyour booklet by mail order to gift shops in hospitals or to libraries, get theISBN number as well as the bar code.

Here’s how to organize your little book of sweet romances

The cover should be a glossy heavier weight paper that can fold easilyenough to fit into a small pocket or purse so people can carry the bookeasily onto transportation. You can market your book at racks in airports,train, and bus stations or at transit centers in vending machines if you buythe empty ones and place them where you can get permission. Hotel lobbies have racks that could fit your book, but usually you supply your ownracks to hotels and convention centers.

Resorts and antique malls also are great places for your little book.Tourist attraction shops in the “old town” sections of cities are great. Infact any place that sells tourist souvenirs make great places to sell your littleromances. People staying in hotels and motels can read the little books,and you can offer the same size booklets with adventure stories orromances related to the particular town or resort history.

On the cover have an illustration in color of the couple featured in theromance story, usually a cameo of the couple featured against a pristinebackground of countryside, or local resort attractions. On the top you canput a ribbon-like title “Your (logo or name) Romance Library” or“Historical Romances of the resort city___” or whatever you want to featureas your own publishing and writing library. This represents your collectionof booklets. You can publish your own writing or those from other romance or historical fiction writers. Travel booklets, auto travel games for kids, or travel romances also can be published in this format.

Usually sweet romances sell better than other genres in this type and sizeof booklet. People want a sweet romance to escape to and to read at night,especially people traveling on business at hotels.

The books will be bought by women and female students of all ages, with the highest demographic being in the 18 to 44 age range and the next highest, 44 to 54 age range. To help sell your romance against the competition, put in a pet character, usually a cat or kitten or a pair of cats in the story that bring the couple together. Your story can feature a female who works at an animal shelter. In this way you can bring in a real animal shelter and dedicate your booklet to animal rescue volunteers, which helps move the story. You can also donate a percentage of your income from the booklet to help animal rescue shelters of your choice.

Make sure your story is universal and familiar enough to sell anywherein the country or even overseas. Your booklet also can be translated intolanguages if you sell to various countries. Keep your library focused onsweet romance because people want to believe that love conquers all andbuy these little stories to relax them and to escape the real world, but thestory must be real enough so that it could believably happen to the reader.

Your little booklet will be a tiny version of a magazine. In the romancestory, keep it around 72 pages as the best-size and weight for handling,mailing, and reading in one sitting. Most people will buy these as theyleave the supermarket to take with them during that long hour or two waitin doctors and dentists offices or while taking a two-hour train ride orwhile on vacation on the beach or in a hotel or during anytime when waitingis necessary.

HOW TO FORMAT YOUR BOOK OR BOOKLET MANUSCRIPTStart your story halfway down page 3 with the title of your little book.You’ll find about six paragraphs can fit on one page. In a sweet romancestory, don’t have chapter headings or a table of contents. Instead of chapterheadings, you only have the title page with author’s name and dedication“to the____.” Fill in to whomever you dedicate the story.

Use three asterisks (***) at the end of each part or chapter of the storyinstead of chapter headings. The asterisks represent the breaks in thestory when the action changes instead of having chapter headings. Yourstory can run about an average of 23 to 26 pages before the chapter endswith the three asterisks and new action begins, for example, on page 27.Then run the action on to about page 36 and have three asterisks there.On page 38 the first sentence starts about two inches down with thefirst letter of the first sentence in larger and highlighted capital letters thanthe rest of the text.

Your middle chapter ends about on page 62 with page 63 started withnew action about two inches in margin from the top of the page and thefirst letter of the first sentence in highlighted, larger capital letters. You’llnotice that the book or story has three acts or three parts. Each chaptercan be of unequal or equal length. It doesn’t matter as long as it adds up toa total of about 72 pages. So you see, the sweet romance story has, like afull-length stage play or short cinema film, 72 pages made up of three acts.Each act takes up a third of the booklet or story. You have a beginning,middle, and end. It follows the rules for a romance novel with romanticpush and pull tension between the characters.

In the story you bring together an unlikely couple that conquer thepush and pull tension of first impressions that don’t prove true as you fleshout the second and third act where sweet romance proves love conquersall.

You can build up your own romance library of titles from your ownwriting or those of other authors. Some authors might want to start acooperative where they share the cost of publication and distribution, butthis is up to you.

You’d do well with only your own stories and publishing your ownwork. Distribute to supermarkets and gift stores. Then add other sourcessuch as racks in hotels, waiting rooms, airports, hospitals, senior centers,community centers, schools, or doctors and dentists offices, lawyer’soffices, and any place people travel or wait, including tourist gift stores inresort areas and theme parks.

Book stores and libraries or vending machines in rest rooms or on thestreet near supermarkets are good bets for little books. Romance novelettes could run around 72 pages. Keep them even numbers. On the back cover place a two paragraph review of each character the starring male and female of the couple and tell something about the person in one sentence for each character. Use only two characters on the back cover.Your third paragraph, a one-sentence statement tells what the story isabout in a 15-word sentence that is centered in the middle of the page.

Below this three sentence/three paragraph description, put a short statement about your romance library or book, such as “welcome to a cornucopia of sweet romance, where love brings different people together” or love conquers all (this one has been used on Mini-Mags). So use your own original statement, “romance unites all.”

Pick your own logo. The bar code goes at the bottom of your back cover, usually in the lower left hand corner. Your own logo image goes at the lower right hand corner. Put your banner and initials centered beneath your “Welcome to the world of sweet romance” or other statement.

This is one way to find winning strategies or guerrilla tactics to salvage your wonderful stories if they are rejected and you know they are really as good or better than similar stories in print and selling wonderfully. If you have revised your stories and have logical reasons and concrete research and marketing tests showing the content appeals to all audiences and could sell well if published, then a 72-page romance story printed andpromoted would cost you far less than publishing a romance novel withno way to distribute it.

Do your research first. Talk to distributors, and find out how to getyour small racks into supermarkets or other sources where you can sellthem. Try news stands and vending machines or packaging your romancestories with other products as a promotion, even honeymoon packages,lingeree, and mail order products such as gift baskets for bridal showers orat writer’s conventions. Happy sales. Happy tales.

How to Format Your Book Manuscript

Here’s how to format a book manuscript, based on my 37years as an editor. The acquisitions editor will hand your bookto a group of readers after spending about 20 seconds getting afirst impression. Your book manuscript is read as if it were aresume. They expect white 20 pound 8.5” X 11x” paper withouttextures. The acquisitions editor will photocopy your out-line, proposal, synopsis, cover letter, and sample chapters or iffiction, completed book when requested.

If the paper weighs more than 20 pounds, it will be hard tophotocopy, and thin, onion-skin paper will tear in the automaticphotocopying machine. If you’re in another country,send a clear photocopy of your work on this type of paper, ifpossible. Your book, again, is your resume and application for abusiness partnership or employment and needs to reflect thatbusiness mood.

The cover page will contain your book title, the division ofthe publishing house for which your book is intended, and thenumber of words and pages. You put your name and address onthe cover sheet and the date. After your cover page, insert ablank sheet and put another blank sheet after the last page toprotect the last page of your book from creasing and tearing.

My favorite romance of this size is author, Kathleen Dreesen’s sweetromance story, “Loving Touch.” It runs the standard 72 pages, and thenovelette booklet is published by American Media Mini Mags Inc.,MicroMags logo. Her booklet is dedicated to the staff and volunteers atWe Care Animal Rescue, St. Helena, California. The characters are fiction.Only their love is real, says the statement on the first page. I highlyrecommend reading this booklet to get an idea of the size and type of storythat sells well.

On the inside of your cover, put your name, business address, andemail. Put the date of the copyright and where it was printed, in the USAor elsewhere. Your title page would have the title centered, the author’sname beneath it, and any dedication. On the back of your title page, printany information regarding your decision to accept or not accept unsolicitedmanuscripts from other writers.

Otherwise, you may get everyone sending you their romance stories inhopes you’ll publish them. You don’t want your mail or email blocked, soprint a statement that you’ll only take one-page queries if you’re interested,or whether you don’t want anyone sending you their own stories to publish.Editors want a standard of one inch margins all around eachpage, on everything. Leave room for the reader’s and editor’snotes on top of the page. Your header is standardized at one inchfrom the top page and a half inch higher than where your textstarts. Make sure your header is the same width as the text line.

On this page, you put the title of your book, your name, and the page number on the upper right corner. Use your full or last name (last name is preferred by most editors). Use the same font throughout, preferably Times New Roman 12 point. Don’t send books in any other font as editors are required to convert for typesetting departments to Times New Roman 12. So convert it if it’s in Courier, Ariel or another font. Or follow a publisher's instructions on font type and size. For self-publishers, choose a font and type size that's readable to all ages, not just tiny print.

Make sure the font is as black as you can get it and the paper is really white, not tan. It has to be photocopied without a shadow. Most books accepted had more white space and paragraphs under ten lines. Rejected books almost always didn’t have theseappearances. When mailing your book, put it in a clear plastic bag, the kind you get from the supermarket or meat counter, with no printing on the bag.

The green or red printing comes off with moisture and ruins the book with stains. So no print is placed on the bag. After your book is in the clear plastic (transparent) bag, fold it over so it fits well around the book and put a small bit of transparent tape in the middle. Then put two rubber bands around your manuscript. One rubber band will be at the top and the other at the bottom to hold the plastic bag in place better and to keeppages together.

Don’t send a manuscript in a loose-leaf binder and don’t put clips on it. Leave off any file folders. Put the manuscript along with a sturdy self-addressed stamped envelope inside a large envelope with book padding. Make sure the return envelope won’t tear in shipping and handling when it’s returned. Have the correct number of stamps on the envelope. Some editors ask for an e-mailed manuscript. This will save you money on printer ink and paper as well as postage that includes envelopes and paid postage for the return of a manuscript.

Also add to this before sealing, a self-addressed stamped post card the editor can return to let you know your book is received. You’d be surprised at the long way this courtesy goes and the effect it has on readers or editors about your attitude to save them the postage of a receipt reply. Print up some business cards and put this into a small envelope with your return card, so you’ll look more like a professional writer with a business card.

Have a query letter or cover letter on top of everything so the editor will know what you want done with the book and what it’s about, and perhaps a guide to the synopsis. In one paragraph or preferably one sentence, state or pitch what your bookis about: For example, it has been said that “Star Trek is Wagon Train in Space.”

Never embarrass an editor by sending a gift or artsy crafty item with a manuscript because everything will be returned after going in the slush pile. Manuscripts must never be faxed. They use up the editor’s paper supply and make an awful impression on your attitude and boldness. You want to make an impact of courtesy and business-like manners, an aura of professionalism.

Every time someone faxes a manuscript or synopsis, usually it’s rejected and taken as an insult for tying up the fax machine and using up the paper at the other end. So treat your manuscript as if it were your best resume. Show your enthusiasm by a professional, business-like attitude and common courtesy.

It has been said: How to Write About the Most Powerful Source You HaveWrite About Positive Hooks because People Don’t Want to Read About Pain

The reason nourishment books like the “Chicken Soup” series sold sowell is because the books bring joy instead of dumping pain on the reader.Dump the pain in therapeutic writing, but in writing you want to publishfor a large audience, offer nourishment for the soul, mind, health, and wallet.

People buy more books on the habits of millionaires and efficient peoplethan they buy books surveying the plight of those in poverty or pain,especially when no quick solutions are offered. People want the secrets ofhealing, love, wealth, and happiness—in short, nourishment from a book,how to enhance creativity, or information on how to build or repair something and how to find inspiration, motivation, joy, and contentment.

Include the press kit when giving presentations, seminars, interviews,radio or T.V. appearances or querying editors, producers, publishers,agents, and entertainment attorneys. Send the press kit to newspaper andmagazine editors, television producers, and radio talk show hosts seekingguests from the writing community. Even mystery and suspense novels or true crime accounts have to offer more than violence and justice.

The purpose of a specific type of press kit could be to inform people that scriptwriting is being done on a full-time basis and assignments are wanted either re-writing other writer’s scripts or created fiction or non-fiction video and film scripts for production. Industrial video and the trade magazines are constant users of video scripts for training.

Press kits are included in presentations, pitching, written proposals,sales packets, query letters, and in general correspondence. Marketing andsales for home-based scriptwriters are fields worth writing about in printand in training video script format.

How Do You Create A Powerful Media Hook or Angle?

Every scriptwriter needs an online press kit to pre-sell a script to thevideo or film market. Most print press kits are discarded by the mediawithout being opened, unless you’re well-known. The only way the media

will pay attention to a press kit is if it contains a powerful hook. Have onesentence or question that will repeat at the beginning, middle, and end ofthe press kit. Bring the media to your Web site before you mail out expensive printed material to someone who doesn’t contact you and ask for a review copy or press kit of your work.

Use a question hook that makes a busy editor stop and think. Make thequestion personal and universal. Put on the press kit’s cover a hook question that makes the media do some introverted thinking. In large type letters have the question hook read something like, “What’s the mostpowerful resource you have?”

Notice that that hook question is the same as the one you ask of yourhero when creating a screenplay, novel, or short story. Another powerfulhook question is, “How many times have you sold out on your real dreamsand settled for something less?”

This question is also the same as the writer would ask of a hero in creatinga novel, story, or screenplay. The hero’s individual reactions form thestory structure. The editor’s reaction creates news coverage in the form offree publicity. Use a personal hook question, not a statement, both on thecover of the folder and inside in the press release. A scriptwriter has to bea professional media strategist, an architect and designer of ‘models’ onpaper that create visibility in the media for the unsold, pre-sold, or in development script.

Use a hook question in the middle of the press release that reads something like, “If you could perform one act what would it be?” You’re exerting your power here, or writing about someone who needs to find power or come out of a powerless situation.

Again, that’s the same question the hero in a screenplay or novel wouldbe asked to elicit individual actions. The only reason to create a questionhook is to find the largest audience in the shortest time.A professional-looking press kit publicizes a script, book, or freelancewriting business inexpensively. Paid advertising would cost hundreds of dollars for a two-inch display ad in daily newspaper or high-circulationtrade journal.

A press kit is an open invitation for the writer to be hired by colleges ofextended studies at $50 an hour or 50% of the gross of student’s fees togive a one-day seminar on writing. Experience is more important than adegree at such adult education seminars in private schools. This kind ofexposure, such as giving seminars for producers and directors on scriptanalysis and consulting leads to better chances to have personal screenplays seen by producers.

Stop using fear as an advertisement to draw people in. There areenough ads on TV that start with a screeching ambulance and a manshouting how he’s dying. These ads are broadcast after midnight or late atnight so if you fell asleep in front of your TV set, they shock you out ofyour sweet dream with fearful possible reality scenario to get you to buytheir safety products. It doesn’t work with older people who may beshocked into a panic attack or worse by the sudden noise of screamingsirens and shouting.

You sell serenity and joy, and stop using fear hooks as they don’t workwith older or frail people who get sick watching other people getting sick.If you want to sell some product or piece of writing, use positive hooks tobring people to places in life or countryside where a quiet joy offers serenity,like a fountain gently babbling, a scene at the beach calm and joyous,or a gentle garden.

A screenwriter or novelist sells service, not only a script. Describe howthe script or videowriting service is used—and end. These strategies alsowork for nonfiction books or columns. For nonfiction, use an insightful,popular, and commercial short two-word title such as “Robot Cowboys”Or a slightly longer, but snappy, trendy title that tells the whole story ofthe nonfiction book: “Why Writers Want More Monies and PublishersWant More Funnies.” Or “Why Women Want More_____and MenWant More_____”

What Do Media Professionals Expect To See?

Newspaper and magazine editors, radio and T.V. producers, agents,publicists, entertainment attorneys, directors, actors, film, and video creative directors are used to receiving professionally printed press kits. They only read material sent in an “acceptable format.”

An acceptable press kit consists of a double-pocketed file folder, thequestion hook printed on the cover (not typed on a regular typewriter, buttypeset with desktop publishing fonts). Inside the flap pocket is anotherquestion hook on the inside cover. In the flap-pocket is a black and whiteglossy photo of the writer (matte for television producers).

On top of the photo is a four-page press release about what the writerhas to offer that needs visibility—and how the information will help thecommunity or readers. A short, one-page press release goes on top of thefour-page release. The short press release gives the writer’s biography, credits, credentials, and anything else important the writer has done in relation to what the longer press release covers.

News clippings about the writer or the script are put over the short press release. The clippings are cut out, dated, titled, and pasted on a sheet of paper and then photocopied onto a slick, camera-ready white sheet. Include in the second flap pocket a copy of any article, booklet, book, sample, or tape for media review. This press kit goes to agents as well as media editors and producers.

What does a press kit pitch? Place a two-page pitch release on top of allthe other information in the kit tells the media why the script is soextraordinary, so unique and different and who can benefit by seeing it.Include a marketability study of who would be buying the script, book, ortape. The new age video market is on the rise.

On top of every release, place the final cover letter as a courtesy, tellingwhy you want the media to print selected press releases and the photoinside. The cover letter is one page or less in length. The first paragraph ofthe cover letter contains a premise—of the release. What’s important issummarized in one sentence.

Use concrete credentials that can be checked. If the press kit is going toa publisher to sell a book/script package deal, include a chapter breakdown.The titles of the chapters sell the book just as the title of a videoscript determines its commercial appeal.

Book chapter summaries vary from three paragraphs to under a pagefor highlights. Tell the media exactly what viewers will be told when theyview the script. For script/booklet combinations such as book and audiotape combinations, or video and instructional manual packages, writedown the components of the book in a press kit, and send a sample. Thistechnique holds true for self-published and self-produced video/bookpackages used for instruction or motivation.

The first chapter of a book is like the first scene of a video script. It’s theselling chapter. In a press kit designed to sell and outline a book and videopackage, tell the reader why she needs to read the book and view the video.

Include photos or a mock-up copy of the video or book combination. The fastest way to impress a reader about a video is to have an advertisementor poster with a black background and white print. The print is superimposed over a photo in the background. Viewers will remember that video above one on a white background with black lettering and design.

It’s possible to create an infomercial to mail out to potential buyers whomight be interested in purchasing a produced video or a published book,but it’s expensive.

A press kit creating visibility for a video, a script, or a book is more direct. Use one sentence to summarize your book, pamphlet, article, or script’s premise.

Marketing researchers often report that readers will respond faster to anarticle written by a reporter about a person, business, or product than to apaid advertisement placed by the entrepreneur. An article I wrote for ahigh-circulation paper brought in 600 requests for information when Iincluded my post office box number.

The tiny, classified ad I placed in the back of the paper (which was expensive for me) brought no responses. Visibility influences marketing. Contacts with video software distributors lead to contacts with producers. A commercial title can pre-sell a script. Free publicity and press coverage pulls more weight than small, paid display ads announcing “script for sale.” Press coverage is free, and can be obtained by a phone call and a news angle or a press kit.

The market for video scripts is wide and covers fiction and nonfiction.Networking with people in the industry and the press, including the tradepress, makes selling a script smoother.

A DIGITAL RENAISSANCE: WHERE CREATIVE WRITINGMEETS E-PUBLISHING

Writers, your new medium is here…You can be among the firstto branch out into interactive intuitive writing on the Web.Now is the time to start writing for the newest media, whether it’snews, education, entertainment, or a hybrid mixture of all of theabove. Today’s Web provides news and entertainment in cyberspace,as well as education, job training, and college degrees.

Self Promotion of Your Writing Before and After Publication

Create Visibility by plugging products you like to be packaged with your books, pamphlets, tapes, or other writing. If your book is accepted, your expenses will soar. You have to promote your own books online. You’ll need to make public appearances also and chat online. Your Web site is your best marketing tool. Editors are never created equal. One person’s opinion will always be different from another person’s views about your work.

Keep mailing lists for self-promotion. Ask your publisher to sponsoryour mailing, but you supply the addresses. They don’t have time ormoney to gather addresses beyond a few newspapers. Hang onto fan emailand save on disk. Print out, and send to editors in a collection whenasked to do so and only then, after you send a query letter asking whenthey want the fan mail.

Keep all online reviews, pertaining to your book. Most fiction nowadays is bought when writers are discovered after having published in major magazines publishing short stories. Editors then ask them to write novels and expand their stories or come up with new material. Manuscripts are bought through contests, from the winners. Your personal contact with editors can do more for your book than an agent because the publisher is really looking at the published short stories in magazines to recruit a new crop of novelists.

You get in touch with an editor and find out what conferences the editor will attend so you can meet in person and discuss your writing. More books are sold face to face than most other ways. If you have a day job, don’t quit because writers earning twice their salary or more from books are still holding onto their own day jobs. If you’ve made the best-seller list many times, you still can’t quit because your book will be out of print intwo years, most likely. The more successful you are, the more publishers will insist that your sales are higher than they were with your first best-selling books.

Readers will write to your editor or publisher demanding that you write faster, and the publisher will write back to you to give the editors faster turn-around time. You will be expected to make each book better than the one before it. You won’t be allowed to only write. Instead, your time will be taken with editing books that need revising and sending proposals and outlines. Your deadlines will grow shorter the more books you write.

Do your research first. Contact the National Writers Union to find out what your rights are before you go with an agent. You can ask for more free copies if you need them and publicity, because unless you’re famous, you won’t get much publicity beyond a press release from the average publisher. Think about publishing your own book and creating your own publicity campaign.

Make sure your contract doesn’t keep you from writing for another publisher. If it does, find out whether you can write under pen names to increase your income by writing for more than one publisher, especially when books go out of print quickly. Ask how much time you will be given to write the book and do you have a choice. What’s your deadline? Then after the book is sent in, how long will it take, that’s the turn-around time, until publication?

Four months before publication you need to start your public relationscampaign with the editors and publishers magazines, and with the newspapers, when the book is available. Every need changes in the way of genre, each year. You need to be flexible about what you need to write. The technological world is unfolding in ways that are great for writers.